Use. This should teach us patience, when we can do little good with those that are under us by all our instructions and corrections, wait the due time. Grace is not of thy giving. The heart is not of thy opening, or of any man's opening. Therefore as it is 2 Tim. ii. 23, seq., wait and bear ' with patience men of contrar}^ minds,' waiting when God in due time gives them grace to repent. Grace is God's creature. It is none of our own. Therefore take heed that we be not short and angry spirited. If we cannot have all we would have of those that are under us, children or servants, let us wait God's time. He opens the heart in his time.
And if we find not grace wrought in our own hearts at the first, or second, * That is, ' altogether.' — G.
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or third sermon, let us do as he jit the Pool of Bethesda, lie there till the angel stir the water, till God be eflfectual b}' his Spirit. God doth it, and he only doth it, only we must wait. He will do it in his good time. Be not over short-spirited. This we ought to observe out of these words, ' God opened the heart of Lydia.'
The heart is put for the whole soul. He opened her understanding to conceive ; for all things begin with heavenly light of the understanding. All grace comes into the soul by the understanding.
There is no sanctifying grace in the affections but it comes by enlighten- ing the understanding. We see the grounds of it in the understanding first. God opens the understanding, and then he opens the memory to retain. That the memory may be as the pot of manna to hold heavenly things, he opens and strengthens it with retention to keep them, and he opens the will to close with holy things, and the affections to joy and delight in them. So the heart is the whole inward man. He not only enlightens the understanding, but infuseth grace into the will and affections, into the whole inward man. We must take it in that extent, for else if God should only open the understanding, and not through the understand- ing flow into the will by the power of his Spirit, the will would alway rebel, as indeed it is a poisonful thing. There is nothing so malicious, next the devil, as the will of man. God will have one way, and it will have another. Therefore God doth not only open the understanding to conceive, but he opens the will to close with and to embrace that that is good ; or else it will take arms against the understanding in that that is good, and never come to the woi'k of grace. Therefore take it so. He opened the will and affections as well as the understanding, though whatsoever is in the will and affections comes through the understanding, as well as heat comes through light. God opened her heart, to v.'hat end ?
' To attend to the things that wei'e spoken of Paul.'
The word signifies to apply and set her mind to the things that Paul said, to join and fasten the mind to what Paul said (b).
First, You see then, here is the openinff of the heart before there is^ attending. Before there can be any attending and applying of the mind, the mind must be sanctified and strengthened. The soul must be sanctified before it can attend.
The reason is, nothing can flow but from a suitable faculty, and ability to attend is a power and act of ^the soul. It must come from a sanctified power of the soul. The heart must first be opened, and then the heart attends. God saith, he will circumcise the heart, and then we shall love him. He sanctifies the heart, and then it loves him. God changeth and altereth the frame of the soul, and then holy actions come from it. First, grace begins with the abilities and powers of the soul. The heart is opened, and then come holy actions suitable. There is no proportion between holy actions and an unsanctified soul. The heart must first be opened, and then it attends.
* Whose heart the Lord opened that she attended,' &c.
You see then, in the next place, that God opening the heart of any Christian, it is to carry the attention to the word. God by grace carries the heart to the word. ' She attended to what Paul spake.' Where true grace is wrought, it carries not to speculation, or to practise this or that idle dream ; but where the heart is open, grace carries to attend to the word, especially to the good word, the gospel of Christ. As grace is wrought by the word, so it carries the soul to the word.
526 lydia's conversion.
Use. And therefore it ma}- be a use of trial, to know whether we have our hearts wrought on by the grace of God or no ; whether God by his Spirit have opened our hearts or no, if our hearts be carried to the blessed word of God to relish that. If they be, God hath opened our hearts to attend to the word. And tliere is no better evidence of a child of God, than that that is fetched from the allection that he carries to the word and blessed truth of God. Oh, he relishoth it as his appointed food. He can- not be without it. Talce away that, and you take away his life. ' My sheep hear my voice,' John x. 3. You are none of mine, because you hear not my word. A delight in the blessed truth of God is an argument that God hath first opened the heart.